Edmund Dudley's blog

OUP demo lessons and mixed-ability workshop, Hungary

The slides from the short workshop on Mixed-Ability Teaching are available here in pdf format.

I’ve really enjoyed the teaching the demo lessons. It’s not a truly authentic experience, of course – how could it be, when the students and I have never met before, when the room is crowded with observers? Having said that, the lessons have given us a lot of food for thought, and have also provided an opportunity to showcase a few of the techniques for managing the classroom (e.g. lollipop sticks for nominating students, the ‘speak/pass/nominate’ option, the ‘dice master’) that underpin approaches to making the classroom more inclusive and growth-oriented.

Thanks so much to everyone who was involved, especially the students and their teachers.

The speak/pass/nominate option is a further way of empowering students when responding to prompts in the speaking phase of lessons.

When their name is called, the student has three options

speak: choose to give an answer yourself – it could be an idea, a preference or a personal opinion

pass: choose *not* to speak at this time. (This decision should be accepted without question.)

nominate: choose to nominate one of the people in your group – whose ideas you have just heard – to provide an answer instead of you.

A key aspect of this technique is encouraging students to speak without *forcing* them to; providing alternative options (pass or nominate) ensures that the student is in control of what happens. Of course, it’s tempting to assume that students will always take the easy option and pass. Interestingly, though, that’s not what happened in the lesson! Students – chosen at random using the lollipop sticks – consistently chose to speak themselves when provided with the speak/pass/nominate option.

It’s interesting, and confirms my feeling that once students feel secure and empowered in the classroom they will be more willing to make contributions – despite whatever limitations in proficiency they might have.